In recent years, there has been a rapidly growing trend toward more and more functions incorporated into a communications terminal, such as a mobile phone and a PDA (Personal Digital Assistance). Especially, communications terminal having an image shooting function is at the center of users' attention. A communications terminal having an image shooting function is provided with a camera unit composed of a shooting lens and either a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) or a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) image sensor. Alternatively, the camera unit may be provided as an external unit that is optionally connectable to such a communications terminal. With the above construction, a communications terminal having an image shooting function doubles as a digital cameras.
When shooting a still image using a communications terminal having an image shooting function, a user first needs to put the communications terminal into an image shooting mode. In the image shooting mode, the communications terminal reproduces on its display unit, image data that is sequentially transmitted from the camera unit. While viewing the image on the display unit, the user pushes a button functioning as a shutter (hereinafter, referred to simply as a shutter button). The communications terminal generates image data representing a still image that is taken with the camera unit at the moment when the shutter button is pushed, and stores the generated image data into a built-in memory using a predetermined data compression codec. Further, some models of communications terminals are capable of shooting moving images.
The compressed image data stored in a communications terminal may be reproduced on the display unit. In addition, using a mail function of the communications terminal, the image data may be transmitted as an e-mail attachment to a personal computer owned by the user of the communications terminal or another communications terminal owned by another user. Note that the term “e-mail” used herein refers to electronic messages that can be sent over a communications network. An e-mail message may be text-based. In addition, binary files representing, for example, audio and video data may be optionally attached to an e-mail message.
To compose an e-mail message on a communications terminal having an image shooting function, a user first puts the communications terminal into an e-mail composition mode, so that a GUI (Graphical User Interface) screen for e-mail composition is displayed on the display unit. The user then inputs various data, such as an e-mail address being a destination of the e-mail message, a subject, and a text-based message. Here, the user may optionally attach image data to the e-mail message.
One reason that attributes the popularity of communications terminals having an image shooting function is found in its mail function. The mail function allows the transmission of shot images to another communications terminal without requiring any connection to another communications device.
Unfortunately, however, users are required to go through a series of operations in order to transmit a shot image to another communications terminal. For example, after shooting a sill image, the user needs to put the communications terminal into the e-mail composition mode, inputs a destination e-mail address, and selects image data to be attached. The series of operations is complicated especially when the user intends to transmit the image data immediately after shooting.